Practices for Involving Stakeholders September 14, 2012 Intro: doing ongoing research on improving ISD productivity. Introduce the clients – ask them to raise their hand. . . Warn: the following team-projects should stay in OHE 122: Team 1 – project 19 3-21, 5-7, 8-2, 9-18, 11-1, 12-5, 14-13, 15-4, 16-20, 17-22 These team-projects should go to GFS106: 2-9, 4-8, 6-17, 7-6, 10-15, 13-16, 18 PLEASE SIT IN TEAMS Based on lecture from Dr. Ann Majchrzak and Arlene W. Williams Marshall School of Business

Mutual Learning Shared responsibility in mutual learning Purpose Mutual Learning Shared responsibility in mutual learning Define what “clients” and “developers” are.

How will we Do this? Mini Lecture #1 Mini Lecture #2 Practice Exercise #1 PracticeExercise #2 Mini Lecture #3

Mutual learning process Do you have initial thought on how the final product would look like ?

Throwing over the wall syndrome

What do you expect to learn from this class/project? Let’s think about it

Knowledge Transfer Business Side IT/IS/SE Individual Learning

Collaborative learning Business Side IT/IS/SE Together learning new ways of structuring processes

Why Is this important? Business Innovation (New Services & Products) Business Effectiveness (Better) Business Innovation (New Services & Products) Business Efficiencies (Faster, cheaper) Lost opportunities in:

Practices for Encouraging Collaborative Learning I. Creating Shared Responsibility II. Elaboration III. Optimize creative friction to achieve learning Emphasize “between client and developers.” Three critical factors: coord norms, effective meeting management, and reconciling and managing differences

Shared Responsibility in mutual learning A psychological attitude: We’re all on the same team. We’re in this together. In treatment, go fast on these slides…

Practices for Encouraging Shared Responsibility: When Managing Stakeholder Relationships Help to make ALL stakeholders part of development team: Put on email distribution list Include in teleconferences Frequent interactions, even if brief Identify tasks that developer and client can work on together Use “we” not “I” during discussions Identify team-based rewards (such as lunches) Define project success metric as system use, not just system development

Practices for Encouraging Shared Responsibility when Project Starts 1) Identify a learning facilitator 2) Identify learning objectives for each stakeholder: - Client organization’s work process? - IS development process? - Technology developments? - Use of IS/IT/SE in business? 3) Identify & Assign development tasks related to each learning objective 4) End each meeting with assessment of learning

Practices for Encouraging Collaborative Learning I. Creating Shared Responsibility II. Elaboration III. Optimize creative friction to achieve learning Emphasize “between client and developers.” Three critical factors: coord norms, effective meeting management, and reconciling and managing differences

What kind of learning? Sharing idea, illustrate, show me examples Clients – don’t just give some info – don’t just throw over the wall Difference between A client who learned A client who is satisfied

Purpose of elaboration Create a common body of knowledge shared by stakeholders about: A vision of the IT-enabled to-be work process Business & technical rationale for vision compared to alternatives Execution Plan Goals, preferences, and fallback options for each stakeholder The most efficient ways for each stakeholders to learn

The Elaboration Process Focus on Actual Work Processes Not looking for hypothetical ideal, but actual tasks (Don’t say: “users “USUALLY/would” do X”) Let’s pick a user, do you have a name for this user? What Joe Smith does in this case? Immediately co-create prototype of how work done now or in future. Observe how client WALKS THROUGH using prototype to make DECISIONS Note client’s decisions, work around, process Give client opportunity to explain actions

Elaboration Practices Learning is not telling; self-explainers learn more than listeners Thus, allow time for everyone to “self- explain” How they might use it

Elaboration practices Make abstract discussions concrete Use examples related to client’s work Diagram ideas Build on the client’s methods for describing work, not your own techniques Translate terms

Elaboration Practices Customize learning techniques Try different techniques Keep creative ideas flowing Hand-drawn prototype

Active Listening Ask about unstated reactions to idea Switch roles Avoid talking too much Restate what you heard Build on the client’s examples & ideas

Exercise Conduct a 10-minute design meeting and see how many elaboration techniques you used Observe users roleplay with prototypes Time to self-explain Concrete examples Translate terms Are you learning what you wanted? Role play alternatives What would happen if …? Ask about unstated reactions

Practices for Encouraging Collaborative Learning I. Creating Shared Responsibility II. Elaboration III. Optimize creative friction to achieve learning Emphasize “between client and developers.” Three critical factors: coord norms, effective meeting management, and reconciling and managing differences

III. Learning through Creative Friction Don’t be afraid to disagree. Talk through, rather than avoid differences of opinions

Problems with Many Teams Participants’ creativity not engaged Look for solution that creates quick consensus Unwilling to confront others with different ideas Politeness takes precedence INSTEAD: Sources: Facts (from miscommunication or from your backgrounds – users are not typically very technical and developers are not very well versed in business) – cure with deeper probing, clarification. Objectives (explicit and hidden) – sometimes true objectives are hidden, e.g. get an A for the course. Commitment (non-compliance) – some parties are just more committed than others. Because of differences in power (acquiesence, non-assertiveness, passive acceptance), differences hard to be surfaced. You can’t tell a boss you disagree too often: ain’t good for your health. But you have a difference. Culture – always blamed for breakdowns. Stereotypes like “Asians are shy” etc. Beliefs, which are often irreconcilable. Differences of opinion WILL occur. At least know there is a difference, and start from that point. Work around the difference. An example difference is: clients might be more concerned with getting a simple prototype that can easily be implemented into a final system while developers might be interested in creating a technically elegant solution. Elicit from the class on how differences might be manifest. Then…the presentation forks from the placebo in the “recognize they exist” point. Recognizing that differences of opinions exist; understanding why the differences relate back to goals (is it the goals were not as well-understood). This is harder than you might think. You'll need Cognitive Elaboration tools to explore this. Differences of opinion WILL occur. An example difference is: clients might be more concerned with getting a simple prototype that can easily be implemented into a final system while developers might be interested in creating a technically elegant solution. If you are lucky, differences will emerge as disagreements, If you are not so lucky, they may appear in the guise of miscommunication, conflict over some other issue, failure to comply with agreements, silent treatment, sarcasm, acquiescence. Once differences are identified, we need to understand them (using the techniques already identified in the previous section) Some differences can be managed just with better communication techniques. Other differences are more fundamental. If the communication techniques already identified don't eliminate client/developer differences, then it is necessary to negotiate a mutually acceptable solution. Let's give an example of a possible area of disagreement: Every time Dvlprs talk about the interface between the database and the prototype application being designed, client shows a lack of interest (but doesn't say anything) and then asks them about alternative user interfaces. Dvlprs feel the UI is simple and irrelevant to the key problem, which they believe to be the DB design. So, this shows a disagreement over where to spend limited time: Team feels need to resolve how to make the DB interface work; Client wants to see more alternatives for user interface. So what do you do? First, you acknowledge that there is a disagreement: "every time we talk about DB design, you show a lack of interest; are you more interested in the UI design?" If based on this public acknowledgement, client confirms that there is a disagreement, move to next step (which is to figure out how to resolve it)   Don’t assume that an initial no-diff between client-dvlpr will hold. Search for underlying or less apparent diffs. Innovation Creative Friction

Example: Difference in Practices INDIVIDUAL Use prototypes for single solution Enforce single representation of knowledge (“ERD”) Explain own knowledge Talk Stay in role COLLABORATIVE Use prototypes to explore different concepts Represent knowledge in different ways Have others explain your knowledge Draw, listen, ask questions Reverse roles

Checklist during meetings Did you? Use prototypes to explore concepts? Let clients develop prototypes? Create “test-drivable” prototypes? Make sure client asked as many questions as you did? Stimulate creativity through questioning? Restate dialogue to improve understanding? Use examples from more than one work context? Avoid using IS/CS/SE-language?

Checklist during meetings (Cont) Did you: Use visual examples to explain concepts? Reverse roles? Try more than one way to represent how work is done? Elaborate on client’s idea? Ground ideas in client’s physical world with a role play by sharing stories of how work is done? Ask about client’s unstated reactions to an idea? Show any software that client might want to emulate?

A Whole new world to explore

Summary Every client-developer encounter is an opportunity for learning Every client and developer learns differently Controlling the learning process is better than leaving it uncontrolled Control it by: Building and maintaining a sense of shared responsibility for outcomes Managing conflict for learning Using elaboration techniques by “surfacing” assumed (implicit but often misunderstood) norms, agendas (hidden or otherwise), and differences (ranging from pure misconceptions/misinformation to true irreconcilable differences), we set a positive tone for problem-solving and moving forward. In addition to surfacing, clients and developers must share some responsibility and make an effort to learn from each other. Such sharing and mutual learning helps generate creative alternatives, which in turn leads to successful outcomes.

Thank you!